


The Killing Ocean

by appalachian_fireflies



Series: The Drowning Sense [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Boarding School, Bonding, Boys In Love, Dystopia, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Omega Verse, Omega/Omega, Other, Psychological Torture, Sentinel Senses, Sentinel/Guide, Torture, no knowledge of any tropes needed, no sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-09 21:27:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3264932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appalachian_fireflies/pseuds/appalachian_fireflies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Omegas are a scientific miracle, genetically engineered to repopulate a planet stricken by infertility.  The genetic manipulation, however, gave them unintended sensory and empathy sensitivities; without being bonded to a stable partner, they are prone to psychotic breaks.  </p><p>When Ian presents as an unusually sensitive omega, even hearing other people's thoughts, his parents are given two options.  Bond him to a mate soon, or send him to a special school for omegas like him.  </p><p>For Ian, who has only ever wanted the chance to study and prove himself, it seems like a godsend.  Anything has to be better than living as an incubator, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is in-universe with "The Drowning Sense." This can be considered a Prologue and/or Part 1, but the two stories can be read completely separately. Feel free to read this one first. Updates should be daily.

Ian was hiding under the table, fiddling with the wires on his circuit board, while the adults above him ate fancy cheese. The cardboard packaging said the kit was for kids 12+, and he was only eight. Acquiring it had required several explanations about the lack of danger a 5 volt power source posed, plus a bit of complaining that snap circuits were for _babies_. 

One more wire, and the green LED should blink. Simple. He grounded the black wire, and put the red in the 5v slot. The light blinked, then went out. Then it started fizzing. Ian pulled the wire. Too late. The smell of burned plastic was sharp, acrid. He pulled the LED. He’d stuck it in the wrong way- put ground to the positive end. Darn. 

“What’s that smell?” one of the fancy guests said. Ian called her Pearl Lady, because she was always wearing them. She had to have, like, 16 pairs at least. 

His mom lifted the tablecloth, and Ian closed his eyes.

“Ian, honey, what are you doing down there?” she frowned. “You shouldn’t be on your knees in those pants. Up.” 

Ian crawled out, and was suddenly under the spotlight of ten pairs of eyes. He squirmed. This was much worse than being in the chair while everyone talked about boring stuff. Like stocks and what clinic the neighbors were using to conceive. They talked about that a lot. Ugh. 

He slunk back into his chair. 

“What’ve you got there, sweetie?” Pearl Lady smiled. He hated that voices adults used when they baby talked him. They always called him “sweetie” and “darling.” They called his brother “young man,” and he was only seven! 

“Circuit board,” he said. “It was supposed to blink. I put the LED in backwards.” 

“Aren’t you precious,” she said, and Ian tried not to gag. “All the kids are learning about technology early these days, aren’t they? Did one of your friends at school tell you about it?” 

Ian opened his mouth to retort, and his mom looked at him sharply. He was quiet, and the Pearl Lady patted his head, which he sat and tolerated politely. He listened to a few more minutes of the really boring conversation, and decided he had to pee. 

When he was walking back, he saw a couple and some older guy, friends of dad’s, talking in the kitchen. One of them had a roll of crackers to bring to the table, but then they filled up a glass from the tap. There was filtered water at the table. They were loitering. He didn’t blame them. 

“Yes, he’s the omega boy,” the woman said, and Ian froze. He hid behind the door. “Cute as a button, isn’t he?”

“They’re very lucky,” one of the men said. “I heard his father’s keeping an eye on the Richbourg boy. Never too early to look into options,” he offered. “Good, solid family. It’d be a productive partnership for both of their families.” 

Ian froze, his heart beating fast. 

“Especially since the boy’s an omega,” the woman said in a pitying tone. “It’s one thing to think about the future for any healthy children a family is blessed with, but if you don’t marry an omega early enough, there's the added worry of a zone.” 

Ian hurried back to the table, feeling sick. He didn’t eat, but that was ok, because no one was paying close enough attention to him anyways. They’d thrown his circuit board in the trash. He’d get it later. 

When his mom said goodbye to the last guest and started gathering the cheese plates, Ian followed her. She sat the plates in the sink, and Ian tugged her skirt. 

“Yes, honey?” she said, distracted. Ian was quiet, and she crouched down. He opened his arms, and she pulled him into a hug like he was five. He sighed, and she patted his head. 

“Aw, what’s the matter?” she said. Ian stayed quiet. He didn’t want to talk about it. He just needed to calm down, to get rid of the sick, scared feeling. 

“It’s ok, baby,” she said with a last squeeze, then went back to the plates. 

It wasn’t, though. He tried not to think about it. 

*

In middle school, Ian signed up for the bottle rocket contest. He was working with Amy, a girl in fifth period. It was a freaking fantastic bottle rocket. Each contour was calculated to reduce drag, and the structure was way more stable than anyone else’s. Between Amy’s knowledge of the chemicals they were using for propulsion and his calculations, they were going to kill this. 

“Ian, come here,” his teacher said sharply. He looked upset. 

Ian jogged over. His teacher had the formula sheet Ian’d just handed in, and held it out accusatorily. What the hell. 

“Y-es?” Ian said after a moment. Amy made a face at him, and he looked back, puzzled. She jogged over. 

“Did you have someone help you with this?” his teacher said, demanding. 

“No,” Ian replied. 

“I haven’t taught this yet,” his teacher said. “There’s no way you could have known this material. Tell the truth, and we can figure something out, ok?”

“It’s my handwriting!” Ian said, trying not to sound whiny. It wasn’t fair. 

The teacher’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Amy. “Did you copy this from Amy? I know she’s taking some supplementary online courses.” 

“He did it,” Amy said, crossing her arms. “I saw him do it. He’s been studying it on his own.” 

The teacher sighed. “Ian, if you continue lying you’re going to force me to get the administrators involved.” 

Ian was furious. He could feel tears prickling behind his eyes. 

“I’m not the one who’s lying!” he yelled. “Why don’t you tell your wife that you’re sleeping with Ms. Gillian! You think about it all the time, and it’s gross!”

The field got very, very quiet. His teacher went a little green-pale, then bright red. Then he stormed towards the main building. Ian’s stomach dropped. 

Amy was staring at him, uncomfortable. 

Ian sat, dropping his head, and kicked the grass. “What did I just do?” he said miserably. Amy’s expression softened, and she sat down next to him. The other kids were backing away. 

“He’s a sexist douche anyway,” Amy said. “It’s about time someone stood up to him.” 

“Mr. Peterson said in health class this morning that omegas are too emotional to have a career in science,” Ian muttered. “That zones could mean they’d make dangerous mistakes, just like if they let omegas have driver’s licenses. He said it was the natural order that omegas were bonded to their mates, that they didn't need to stay in school cause they'd spend all of their time having babies anyway.” 

“That’s some bullshit,” Amy commented, and Ian hiccuped a laugh. He wiped his eyes. He was crying a little. That was embarrassing. 

“I’m gonna be taken out of classes soon,” Ian said softly. “I’m gonna present as an omega, and they’re gonna say I’m a distraction. Or that it’s dangerous for me.” He ran his fingers roughly through his hair. “Adults are so… ignorant.” 

Amy looked at him sympathetically, and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. But she didn’t understand. “Sorry,” she said. 

A few hours later, they called his parents in. They’d been in important meetings, and they weren't happy. Then the administrator told them what had happened, and their anger turned to long, worried looks in Ian's direction. 

The next day, they sent him to the doctor. 

*

The doctor made him change into a gown, which was embarrassing. He hated being poked and prodded. Once a year was enough. 

He was lying back on the padded table while his mom sat in a chair next to it reading a magazine. The doctor put some cold gel on Ian’s stomach, and Ian made a face. The doctor pressed some device over it, and looked over at a screen. Ian craned his neck, but he couldn’t see it. 

“What’s that?” he asked. 

The doctor smiled. “It lets me see your insides,” he said, his voice sugary sweet. 

“I’m twelve,” Ian said flatly. He was so done with this nonsense. 

“Of course, my mistake,” the doctor said. “I’m giving you a sonogram. It uses an ultrasound echo to see inside your body.”

“Oh,” Ian said. “Sound waves. That’s where the noise is coming from.” 

The doctor frowned. “You can hear that?” 

“I mean,” Ian backtracked, “only a little.” He’d kind of been hoping the doctor would be impressed that he knew what the machine was, and stop treating him like he was an infant. The doctor probably didn’t even know how the machine converted the input to the image on the monitor. Oh well. 

“Well, you’re looking healthy, which is great news,” the doctor said, clicking off the machine. “Have you started slicking yet?” 

“No,” Ian said, a little too loudly and quickly. Nice job, genius. 

“Hm,” the doctor said, going through his pile of clothes. He grabbed Ian's underwear. 

“Hey!” Ian protested. “That’s mine.” 

The doctor ignored him, and flipped it inside out. “Is it possible you just didn’t know it was happening?” he asked archly. 

His mom was looking at him now. “Ian, why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, upset. 

The doctor waved her away. “It’s common for omega boys his age to be in denial when they start presenting.” He folded the underwear, and placed it back on top of the clothes. Ian turned bright red. 

“You can get dressed,” the doctor said. “I’ll be right back.” 

Ian was sitting, clothed, in one of the chairs when the doctor came back. He didn’t like being on the table. 

“Mrs. Lowell,” the doctor addressed, wheeling forwards. He put his hands in his lap. “Your son is presenting, which is normal and healthy for an omega his age. We suggest you take him to be chipped within the next couple of years, to avoid being fined.” 

“That’s not all,” she prompted, taking out her business voice. Sometimes Ian was really glad she was his mother. He moved closer to her. 

“No, it’s not,” the doctor sighed. “Mrs. Lowell, your son- he’s a very sensitive child, especially to be experiencing the symptoms he has this early. He’s a minority, even among omegas. Studies of children like him, well. They come to one conclusion.” 

“Yes?” his mother prompted. “You’re dancing around the point.” 

The doctor looked sympathetic, and a bit nervous. “The symptoms will get worse, the further along he is as he presents. Omegas like him fall into zones at young ages. There’s only one preventative action we know of, and that’s a pair bond with a stable life partner.”

Ian started shaking. He couldn't help it. His mother drew a protective arm around him. 

“What are you saying?” she nearly shouted. “He’s twelve, for christ’s sake!” 

“Yes, ma’am, I know-“ the doctor said in a soothing voice, raising his hands. 

“Don’t you dare patronize me,” she bit out. But she looked sort of scared. 

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said quickly. “Mrs. Lowell, I know this has to be difficult-“ 

“That is not an option right now,” she said firmly. “What are our other options?” 

The doctor bit his lip. “I suppose- I had a patient, a year ago, who was in a similar position as your son. She was only a year older, but she’d started to have psychotic episodes. Her parents refused to let the center find her a bonded mate.” 

“What happened?” Ian’s mom said. She was gripping his shoulder kind of tight. 

“There was- a school, that reached out to them,” he said uncomfortably. “They leave their information in pediatric offices that see omega children, sometimes. But whatever their methods are, I can’t evaluate them, and they certainly aren’t peer-reviewed.” 

“A school?” Ian asked, latching on to the word. 

“Yes,” the doctor said. “A boarding school, somewhere in Idaho, I think it was. Their child was stable, the last I heard. But the medical community’s consensus in this situation-“ 

“Yes, we’ve heard,” Ian’s mother said cooly. Go mom. “You said you have the information in your office?” 

Ian was taken out of his school as soon as his doctor contacted the administration. His mom called the school, which had a long pretentious title, like “The Academy for Gifted Omega Children,” or something like that. It had gifted in the title. He’d never heard anyone refer to an omega as gifted. He wanted to go. 

His mom talked to the woman who’d sent her daughter, and the woman sat in their living room, telling them all about how it’d saved her, and how happy she was there. 

A month later, Ian left his mother at the airport in Idaho, and got into the school’s van for the six hour ride ahead of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you'd like to know about the history/background of this universe, it's in chapter 1 of "The Drowning Sense." thanks for reading!
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr!](http://appalachianfireflies.tumblr.com) Ask questions, vent your feels. I'm here for you.


	2. Chapter 2

The school representatives in the van didn’t talk to Ian on the way there. He fiddled with his phone, but a couple of hours in service got spotty, then dropped off altogether. He sighed, staring out at the repeating miles of scrubland outside the window. When pine trees started to pop up, he almost cheered. 

The driver only stopped once to pee, but Ian didn’t want to bother him. He felt weird. The further he went from the airport, the further he was from his mom. She was probably already flying back to Boston.

The trees continued. 

“Hi,” Ian said, and a woman holding a tablet looked up sharply. “Hello. Do you know how much longer?” 

“About an hour,” she said, succinct, then looked back down at her tablet. Ian itched to get his hands on the couple of books he’d brought, but they were back in the trunk with the rest of his stuff. He leaned on the window, letting his mind go blank. The tapping of the woman’s pen was really annoying. 

When they finally drove up to the school, it was forbidding looking. It loomed on the side of the hills, cloaked by trees. They parked in a line of vans that were all the same size and color. Ian got out, and did his best not to look like a scared kid. 

When had they built this place, anyway? Who had decided to revive Brutalist architecture from the 1950’s? That shit wasn’t cute, even then. 

Ian tried to grab his bag, but one of the representatives waved him away. 

“We’ll take that,” the man said with a smile. 

“Oh. Okay,” Ian said, craning to look up at the building. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d passed anything resembling civilization. 

One of the men came forward. Ian decided to call him Representative One. He looked like he could be a teacher; he had large glasses and kind of poofy hair. Ian always thought he’d like being a teacher, maybe a professor somewhere. A good one though, not one that got annoyed when his students knew more than he did. 

“This way,” Representative One said, waving him over to a door. Ian couldn’t tell where the front of the building was; it looked the same all the way around. 

_Hello to you too,_ Ian thought snidely. 

They passed through a hallway. Then another. 

“Where are we going?” he asked, tentative. 

“Intake,” the man said, not unkindly. “They're going to ask you some questions, then we’ll get you set up in your room.”

Ian nodded. “When will I start classes?” he asked politely. 

“You start tomorrow,” the man replied. A woman in green scrubs with gray sneakers moved toward him. She was breaking the universal “I’m a fun and personable nurse, look at my brightly colored sneakers” rule. Ian blinked at her. 

“See you later, Ian,” Representative One said. He knew his name. The representative walked away. 

“Wait,” Ian called plaintively, but the man couldn’t hear him. 

The nurse led him back to a small room with some equipment Ian had never seen before. If she even was a nurse. Was this normal? He felt like something was wrong, but what did he know, really? 

Since the airport, he’d been keeping himself from thinking he should have just stayed home, because it seemed pointless, childish. He’d committed to this. He hadn’t even been here for five minutes. 

The nurse sat down, typing his information into a form. 

“Can I call my mom?” Ian blurted out. “She, uh, worries a lot. About me.” That wasn't really true. She knew he was a responsible kid. 

“Not yet,” the nurse said placatingly. “We’ve told her you made it here safely.” 

“Ok,” Ian replied, trying to keep his anxiety under control. 

The nurse was a robot, he was pretty sure. She didn’t make any facial expressions. She even seemed to blink on a time delay. He started counting. 

“Mr. Lowell,” the nurse said sternly, snapping his attention back. “I asked you a question.” 

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m just, kind of tired. Long plane ride.” 

She sighed. “Your medical record says you haven’t been chipped yet. Is that true?” 

Ian’s stomach sank. He really didn’t want to have to deal with that today. 

“Yes. I mean, no I haven’t been.” Wasn’t really any way he could lie about that. 

“Good,” she said, marking it down on the computer. Ian blinked.

She asked Ian a whole lot of questions, some he’d heard before at the doctor’s, though there were others he had no clue how to answer. He only lied a little bit. He wasn’t sure how much he should tell them. Telling the truth had always gotten him in trouble, before. 

“Ok,” the nurse said, clicking out of the form on the computer. Ian slumped in relief. He wanted to go hide somewhere, calm himself down in private. He just needed to think. Everything was going to be ok. 

“One more thing,” the nurse said, holding up a cap of electrodes, knitted together and hooked to a machine. She flicked it on, and a bunch of horizontal lines appeared. 

“This is to measure your brain's baseline activity,” she extended the cap, placing it on his head. Ian sat very still. 

“Right,” he said, though he had no clue what was going on. 

“Test,” she said, and the helmet zapped him. He gasped. 

“That hurt,” he protested. “Are you sure that’s safe?” 

The door was closed behind them. He knew absolutely no one here. His phone didn’t work. And the woman seemed to know what she was doing. 

The woman fiddled with some dials. “There we go,” she said, and it zapped him _really hard_. He shrieked at the sudden pain, shocked. The nurse held a speaker to his ear, and a piercingly loud, high-pitched tone played. 

His brain went topsy turvy. The shuffle of the nurses’ sneakers on the floor was like nails on a chalkboard. The dim fluorescent lighting cast quick flickers around the room, like an old movie with a low frame rate. His eyes went wide. He stared at the nurse, and she shocked him again. 

Ian whimpered, trying to move his hands. They seemed slow, strange. His bone structure had always been- delicate, to put it kindly. But now his fingers looked spindly, ghastly. He closed his eyes. 

Once he shut out sight, the voices started. _Apple pie_ , one prosaic voice said, and _is it murder?_ , said another. Then they turned into a swirling pool of sound, down, down, like a waterspout. They were trying to drown him. He struggled. 

“And, out,” the nurse’s voice said, close to his ear. He felt a hard shock, and then it was over. He started coming back to himself. The voices were gone. He was gasping for air, but there was no water. Just a boring old room. He stared blankly at the wall. 

“That’s it for today,” the nurse said, and she left, shutting the door behind her. She hadn’t locked it. Why would she? Where was there to go? He was shaking, he realized. Had she just purposefully triggered a zone, then shocked him back somehow? 

The nurse didn’t return, but Representative One did. The hallways passed in a blur, and Ian started seeing omega teenagers. They were all dressed in grey t-shirts and black pants. Some of them looked at him curiously, and others looked the way he felt. 

Finally, Ian was led to his room. There were two bunks in it. His had a pile of sheets on it, but the other one was made, a little wrinkled. The other bunk had drawings taped to the wall, dragons, fantasy stuff. Ian had outgrown that a few years ago. 

Representative One was talking to him, but Ian couldn’t hear him. He nodded, and eventually the man left, shutting the door quietly behind him. 

Ian laid down on the bunk, pillowing his head on the sheets. He wished his mom was here. He’d never needed a hug more in his life. She would know what to do. But he had a feeling they still wouldn’t let him call her. 

Even if he did, what would he say? Yes, please take me back and marry me to some creepy ass dude who is okay with having babies with a teenager. Changing cultural norms, his ass. 

He started crying. Not quiet, either. Deep, heaving sobs that made him feel sick, till he was wiping his nose. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. He curled on his side. 

The door banged open, and Ian shot up, startled. 

“Hey!” a boy who looked about his age said, “I heard-“ the boy’s smile slid off his face, then he looked solemn. He walked in and shut the door behind him. 

“Homesick?” he asked, sitting on the other end of Ian’s bunk. Ian nodded, trying to wipe away his tears. 

“It’ll get better,” the boy promised. He held out his hand. “I’m Michael,” he introduced.

Ian shook it with the hand that wasn’t covered in snot. He felt an odd wave of calm come over him, like a really good hug. Then he sneezed loudly. 

Michael hopped up and went to his drawers, grabbing some tissues. He handed the entire package to Ian. 

Ian blew his nose. “Thanks,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m Ian.” 

“Pleased to meet you,” Michael said. 

“You as well,” Ian replied. It was very formal of him, he thought. Ian knew how to talk that way when he needed to. He usually didn’t though, with other kids. It’d kept him from fitting in. 

“Where are you from?” Michael asked politely. 

“Boston,” Ian said automatically. 

“Cool,” Michael smiled. “I’m from California. Los Angeles. It gets a lot colder, here.” 

Ian shrugged. “We had a blizzard, in Boston, a week ago.” 

“Wow,” Michael breathed. “It snowed here, once, but it was barely anything.” 

“Is this-“ Ian started. He wasn’t sure how to ask. “Is this really a school?” 

Michael winced. “Kind of. You’re here for training. Like, secret agent stuff. But there are classes, too. They like it when you learn a lot of different things, especially languages.” He puffed his chest up. “I already know Mandarin, because my mom spoke it. I’m bilingual, so far. Working on Spanish and Russian.” 

“Nice,” Ian replied, impressed. He relaxed a bit. So there would be classes. He thought he could do anything, if they let him do that. He just needed a chance to prove himself. 

Michael looked down awkwardly. “The beginning part’s hard, though. They put you through a lot of tests. It’s to make your mind stronger, so you can compete in the games.” 

“What tests?” Ian asked, feeling himself panic. He didn’t want to go through that again, where the world tilted and he lost control of himself. He was afraid he might die. Or fall into a sensory coma. 

“Hey, shh,” Michael said, and Ian felt the anxiety bleed out of him. “They call it Desensitization. It’s really scary at first, but then you get used to it, and you learn how to deal with it. The other omegas told me it was quicker if you taught it to each other, but, well,” he looked at Ian. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” 

Ian felt like he should be panicking, but he couldn’t. “What are the games?” he asked, sounding a little drugged. 

Michael smiled excitedly. “All of the omegas compete in them, once you pass Desensitization. You learn how to branch out with your senses, hear things really far away, listen to other people’s emotions. Then, in the games, you start trying to use that to push at the other students, put feelings or thoughts in their heads and stuff. It’s a competition.” 

“Omegas can’t do that,” Ian scoffed. “If they tried, they’d zone.” 

“Well,” Michael frowned, “yeah, without the training. And all omegas outside of the facility get chipped.” 

“You lost me,” Ian said, rubbing his temples. All the crying had given him a headache. 

“The chips,” Michael explained patiently. “They have a tiny implant that makes omegas dependent on bonding, to keep them from zoning. Which helps, of course, especially without our training, but it’s not the only way.” 

“You sound like a conspiracy theorist,” Ian said flatly. “Why would they even do that?” 

“Because,” Michael affected, his words slow. “Every omega outside of this facility needs to bond and have a lot of babies. For the state. To make sure our numbers don’t go so low that other countries invade us. They all want to do that, to take what we have.” Michael scowled. “It’s why we’re training.” 

“That’s crazy,” Ian returned. 

“You’ll understand, in time,” Michael said sagely. “But now you should go to sleep. You need your rest, for tomorrow.” He stood up, and started shaking out Ian’s sheets. 

Ian felt very tired, all of the sudden. “Are you doing something to my head?” he asked blearily. 

Michael turned looking anxious. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” he asked. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop.” 

The fog lifted, and panic returned all at once, pounding through his veins. “No, wait,” he choked. The panic drained away. 

“I just wanted to help,” Michael said softly. “You felt really sad, and scared, and I wanted to make it better. I’m sorry if I messed up.” 

“No, that’s ok,” Ian said. “It’s a little weird to do it without asking. Just do that, next time.” 

Michael nodded seriously. “Ok.”

Ian’s bed was made in a pleasant blur. “Thank you,” he said, and Michael seemed happier. Ian curled in. Michael sat on his own bed, reading. 

“What’re you reading?” Ian turned on his side, looking at the cover of the book. 

“Fantasy. It’s-“ Ian made a face. “What?”

“Those were the kind of books they used to make me read,” Ian said loftily. “I thought they were boring.” 

“That’s rude,” Michael huffed, which was pretty true. “What do you read, then?”

“Physics stuff.” Michael’s face twisted in revulsion. 

“On purpose? Now _that_ is boring,” he returned. 

“No, it’s not,” Ian grumbled. “You just don’t understand.”

“Maybe not,” Michael allowed, and Ian was disarmed. He was so used to having to defend being smart enough to do physics, but Michael wasn’t saying that at all. He felt like a douche. 

“Sorry,” Ian said, and Michael looked up. “Can you tell me about your book?” 

Michael was very excited to tell him all about his book, as long as he had an audience. Ian listened for a while, nodding and commenting occasionally, then drifted off to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Desensitization was hard. 

Every day, they started with the electrode cap. They did a baseline test. Ian looked out the window, into the courtyard. It was hard to tell what time of year it was, with the evergreen trees. His thirteenth birthday had passed a week ago, according to Michael; he'd drawn a picture of Ian, and left it on his bed. The shine on the glass was clear, polished. No fingerprints. But the screens had holes in them. One of them had a spider’s web strung across it, and the spider quivered in the breeze. 

They put the headphones on. Ian sat very still. It wasn’t worth fighting. The nurse would hold his wrists, and zone him anyway. The piercing tone started. It hurt, like his ears were bleeding. It would have been annoying to a normal person, not painful. He wished he were normal. 

The babble of voices started. Ian’s stomach lurched. Some of them were just talking, some laughing, some growling, others muttering. Hundreds of them. 

They hadn’t let him call his mom. He sent emails, sometimes. One of the monitors always watched. Emails only sent with the approval of a monitor. 

Ian had thought the voices were bad, for the first few sessions. Then they started using harder shocks. 

The shocks burned their way through his body, making his muscles seize up. It _hurt_ , more than anything, more than when he’d burned his hand on the oven. He’d lay there, panting, and then they’d shock him again. It didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason. 

Then, one day, when he vomited into a bucket, he felt it. Pain, sickness, anger, frustration. Wild, elated joy. Pride. Grief. They weren’t his. He started banging his head, and they held his wrists. The nurse marked something on the chart in the corner. She praised him. Then he passed out. 

They shocked him back. There was a different quality to the varieties of shocks, but he couldn’t track it. He didn’t care. He just wanted them to be over. 

A small part of Ian also craved their approval; the other omegas had made it through desensitization, and they were ranked on a chart in the hall for their participation in the games. Ian wanted to make it through this. He wanted to show them he wasn’t a fragile, helpless omega. He was going to win. 

Sometimes, when the voices and the swirl of emotions started, that was all he thought. _I’m going to win, I’m going to win, I’m going to win._

His worst days were when the whirlpool started. It was getting clearer and clearer. There were voices in it, and the smell of dying things. Sometimes, the expired creamer on the nurse’s desk was enough to make him heave. This was much worse. 

He started seeing bodies in the whirlpool, their eyes wide in horror, bleeding from their noses, their eyes. They’d look at Ian, pleading, asking something. He didn’t know the answer. 

The nurse started leaving him with the whirlpool longer and longer. He’d be pulled into it, surrounded by the bodies. He’d feel himself being pulled down, to the surface of the ocean. His feet would touch the water- 

“Out,” the nurse reported. He’d feel the shock, and come back to the room. 

And then they’d do it over. 

*

There were bright, flashing lights. 

He’d be overwhelmed by them, unable to process them. They’d start asking him questions. 

“What’s the square root of 4? What’s the main element the sun is composed of? What do you breathe? What state are you in? What is your name?” 

His senses were caught in a tidal wave of input. He’d answer. Then he’d stutter. He was exhausted. He lost his words. He fell asleep. 

They woke him up. Fast lights this time. It would look like a steady light to normal people. He could see every tiny flicker. His eyes rolled, trying to shut down, to block the input. _Aluminum. It hurts. I need more toothpaste. Please help me, they’re going to kill me._ Which thoughts were his? Which feelings? 

“What is your name? What is your name?” 

His feet were in the ocean. It was dark, but still. It invited him in. He fought. He was up to his thighs, caught in a riptide. 

“Out.” 

*

“Michael?” Ian said softly, his voice muffled by the covers. 

“Yeah?” 

Ian poked his head out. “How do you know when you’re close to being done with Desensitization?” 

Michael frowned. “Well, it’s different for everyone. But, I think. You stop being afraid?” 

Ian sat up against the headboard in a rustle of covers. “What do you mean?” 

Michael made a frustrated noise. “It’s really hard to describe. For me, it was an ocean.” 

“An ocean?” Ian stared at Michael. 

“Yeah,” Michael said airily. “I used to be really scared of it. The water had voices, and I thought it was trying to get me. It was where I’d start to slip into a coma, on the readings. It took me a long time, but then I figured it out.” 

“What?” Ian needed to know. He’d do anything to pass. He wanted to be better. 

Michael put down his book, and leaned forward. “It’s not the ocean that was causing the zones,” he said conspirationally. “It was because I was afraid of it.” 

“But,” Ian interjected, “when my feet are in the water, that’s when-“

“Wait,” Michael breathed, and he hopped over to Ian’s bunk. “You have an ocean too?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Ian said, feeling awkward with the sudden scrutiny. 

“You’re the only other person I’ve met with one,” Michael clapped his hands together. “Other people have different things. Like falling from the clouds, or a forest that tries to strangle them.” He bounced. “This is pretty cool. “

“I guess it is,” Ian smiled. “But how can you not be afraid of it?” 

Michael shook his head. “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said imploringly. “It’s trying to help you.” 

Ian snorted. “Like hell.” 

“Here,” Michael offered, and put his fingers on the sensitive side of Ian’s neck. Ian froze. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, craning his neck. 

“I want to show you,” Michael said patiently. “Just trust me.” 

Ian nodded. “Ok.” Michael smiled, and shut his eyes. Then the room dropped away. 

Ian gasped. They were deep underwater. Michael was swimming. He did a casual flip, then grabbed Ian’s hand, pulling him with him. 

_How are you breathing?_ Ian shouted. 

Michael winced. _Turn down the volume, dude._ He pointed to a dark shape in the water ahead. _We’re breathing because I want to. Down here, I make the rules._

The dark shape turned into a dragon, swimming past them with a flash of its scales. Michael smiled back at Ian. 

_Wow_ , said Ian tremulously. _Can I come back up now?_

Michael nodded. Then they were back in the room. 

“Holy shit,” Ian breathed. 

Michael nodded. “When you’re fighting your mind, you’re fighting yourself. You don’t have to be afraid of it. It’s yours.” 

Ian stared at him. “You’re very wise,” he said finally. 

Michael smiled shyly. “Thanks.” He went back to his book.


	4. Chapter 4

_Monday. Tarp. Goldfish. Raining. Migrane._

Ian winced. He could see the lights through his closed eyelids. The ocean hadn’t come yet. But he could go to it. 

_Stomachache. Anxiety. Holding a newborn infant; joy._

He pictured a shoreline. The waves lapped calmly at his feet, a soothing static. Thousands of stars were overhead, and the full moon made the water shine. The water was warm. 

The shocks started, painful and jarring. The water rose angrily, and the waves reared up, huge and awful. He could feel the riptide pull at his ankles. The water was icy cold. Going in would mean death. 

Ian walked forward, shaking, shivering with cold. It was his ocean. 

_I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid._

_Lemon sherbet. Tigers. STOP, PLEASE-._

Ian closed his eyes, his thin chest heaving rapidly. The tide pulled, eager to have him. He could feel its intent; it wasn’t going to let him go. It was exerting every bit of its will to pull him under. He walked forward, fighting every survival instinct he had. 

A wave crashed over his head in a roar of static, and there was nothing but the water in his nose, blinding him, drowning the voices. He opened his mouth on instinct to gasp, and swallowed down water. 

This was familiar, drowning. He’d almost drowned once after he got caught in a riptide. If his cousin hadn’t been there to pull him out, he could have died. His parents didn’t let him out of their sight for weeks. 

He didn’t struggle. The time for that was over. Drowning meant freezing, sinking. Paralysis. He went under, deeper and deeper, until he couldn’t see the surface. A deep trench opened beneath him. 

The voices were gone. The lights were gone. This was his ocean. 

The water turned warm. 

_Light,_ he thought. 

Thousands of orbs lit up around him, glowing eerily in the dark. He tapped one. It wiggled. 

Ian smiled. _Out,_ he thought, and he surfaced. 

He came back to the room. The nurse smiled in satisfaction, which was the first expression Ian had seen her make. She ticked something off on her charts. 

“You’re done for today,” she said simply. 

Ian grinned, elated. He’d done it. He could do anything. 

*

Michael had an ice pack pressed to his forehead, and was lying down. He’d passed out during the games, and had hit his head on the floor pretty badly. He managed to congratulate Ian, but he also hissed when Ian tried to turn on the lights. 

“I can’t believe they were doing that for so long,” Ian whispered. “It’s so inefficient! We should tell them, like you told me, so they can train us better. It's much simpler. It’d be done in a week, I’m sure of it.” 

Michael opened his eyes. “No,” he said quickly. “Ian, don’t do that.” He winced, and rubbed his temples. 

“Why not?” Ian frowned, taken aback. He’d hoped Michael would be more excited. 

“They don’t like it when we try to tell them how to do treatment." Michael clutched his stomach. “Can you get the trash can?” 

Ian brought it over. Michael leaned to the side, but didn’t puke. 

“They’ve studied this for a long time,” Michael groaned. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.” 

Ian scoffed. “I’m not. How would they know? They’re not one of us.”

“Ian,” Michael said sharply. “I don’t want you to tell them. Promise me.”

"Why?" he challenged. It didn't make any sense. 

Michael heaved into the trash can. He looked up, his eyes fierce. "It's not theirs," he gritted out. "It's not theirs to have." 

Ian huffed. “Fine, ok.” Michael looked really worried, and promising had made him lie back down. 

*

The next day, he didn’t go to the treatment room. 

The monitor brought him to a white room. There wasn’t any furniture, just a metal chamber in the center, filled with water. Ian froze. 

“What’s that?” he asked, anxious. The monitor shut the door behind him. 

“Get in,” the monitor said. 

Ian thought about refusing. He knew the monitor would pick him up and put him in anyway. He’d done it before; held him down, strapped him in. 

Ian nodded, and stepped into the water. It was surprisingly warm. 

“Lay back,” the monitor instructed, and Ian did. The floating sensation was strange. If he closed his eyes, he couldn’t see up or down. 

The monitor grabbed the latch. The top portion was a lid. 

“No,” Ian choked out, “wait-“

The monitor shut the lid. A lock clicked shut. It was completely dark. He was trapped. 

He couldn’t even turn in the capsule. It felt like a coffin. 

He pounded the lid. “Help!” he screamed. He heard the door to the room click shut. “Please!” 

Ian shouted himself hoarse banging on the lid. It was making him tired. 

His voice was the only noise in the chamber. He couldn’t see. The only smell was faint, bitter, like salt. His normally acute senses, feeding him the sounds, images, and feelings for miles around were gone. He felt like a limb had been cut off, like he’d been hollowed out. 

More time passed. The ground didn’t feel right. It pushed him back up, instead of pulling him down. 

He didn’t know if minutes or hours were passing. He talked to himself for a bit, but then it started to creep him out. He tapped his fingers on the lid; it was sealed shut. 

Ian could feel himself getting overwhelmed by the lack of input. He saw his ocean coming towards him. He walked in. The water was still, welcoming. 

He swum deeper, breaststroke. 

_MICHAEL,_ he shouted. _MICHAEL._

His voice echoed in the ocean. He was lost, anchorless. The ocean went for miles in every direction. There was no surface. 

_Michael,_ he sobbed. He gathered his energy. _MICHAEL. COME HERE._

Michael appeared in the water, looking stunned. 

_What,_ he said, looking around. He turned. _Ian?_

 _I think I’m making you up,_ Ian said, though he felt the anxiety draining from him. He wasn’t alone. That was all that mattered. 

_Uh_ , Michael looked around. _Where are you?_

 _Tub/coffin combo_ , Ian replied cheerily. 

Michael looked at him, askance. _That’s a new one,_ he noted. _But they change training all the time. They like to try different tests, you know?_

Ian started doing backstroke. _These people are psychopaths,_ he said calmly. It was true, he realized, his mind suddenly very clear. This was really messed up. All of this was. And all of the other omegas treated it like a game. 

_Are you feeling ok?_ Michael stared at him. 

_No,_ Ian annunciated clearly. _No, I am not._ He started giggling hysterically. _Better here in the facility than anywhere else though, right?_

Michael wrinkled his noise. _I mean, yeah,_ he said, like it was obvious. Ian laughed more. 

_You’re freaking me out,_ Michael said softly. 

Ian turned towards him. _I think more people should be,_ he challenged. _You’re all eating it up, everything they say. About a war that isn’t real, the torture we think we need to make us stronger. We’re so desperate for approval, we think we’re happy here. I didn’t even see it, until now. I need to wake up._

_I thought that was the problem, right now,_ Michael joked shakily. _Listen, you’ll feel better when you get out, I’m sure. Just take it easy._

 _Probably,_ Ian replied. _But that just scares me more._

Michael stared at him, uncomfortable. 

Ian wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, he realized. Michael couldn’t see. He wanted to believe. 

_I-I’ve never been in someone’s mind without touching them, or at least being able to see them, before,_ Michael commented finally. _I’m not sure how you did this._

 _I needed you,_ Ian replied simply. _Can you stay with me?_

_Yeah,_ Michael smiled. _Of course. I’m not going anywhere._

Michael led them further into the depths, creating cities out of glass, orbs that were harmless jellyfish, mermaids that gave them a quest to find an ancient glass bead with the power to restore peace. 

The lid lifted. 

*

Ian cried when they turned the lights on. Dry fabric against his skin grated. He had to be carried to the treatment room. 

The flickering lights made him scream and grab his head. The ocean came over him in a great roar, blocking out everything else. He went deeper then he’d ever gone before, down into the trench. 

He didn’t want to come up. It wasn’t safe. 

*

When Ian came back, a monitor was carrying him back to his room. The door opened with a loud creak. He deposited Ian on his cot, and didn’t turn the light on. 

Michael was peering at him curiously, his ice pack forgotten on his dresser. 

“Ian?” he whispered. 

Ian stood, lurching, and moved towards his voice. 

“Michael?” he said frantically, reaching a hand out. Michael took it. He felt warm, real. Ian sobbed. 

Michael sat up. “Hey, shh,” he said, wrapping his arms around Ian. Ian leaned into them gratefully, tucking his face against Michael’s chest. He was making his shirt damp. 

“It’s ok,” Michael said, compassionate. “It’s always better in the morning.” 

Ian relaxed. He was safe now. Nothing else mattered. 

Michael started to move him arms away, and Ian whined. 

“Wait,” he said pathetically, “just a little bit longer, please.” He needed the comfort, more than breathing. It was the only thing that made him sure he was back, that he was ok. He wasn't alone. Not when Michael was here. 

“I was just going to lay down,” Michael said. “Here.” He laid down on his back, and opened his arms wide. 

Ian laid down gingerly on his chest, sighing. He looked up. Michael was looking down at him oddly. 

“Good night, Ian,” he whispered softly. Ian felt calm. He dreamed that Michael kissed him on the forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello? *chamber echo*


	5. Chapter 5

“Tell me what she’s thinking about,” the woman with the gray suit said idly. 

The omega girl sat in front of him, watching Ian silently. 

Ian made a frustrated noise. There was nothing, blank space. 

“There’s nothing there,” he said finally, defeated. What kind of test was this? There was no way to win. He pushed harder. It was like the girl wasn’t even there. Maybe she was brain dead. She hadn’t spoken or moved, after all. 

The woman in the gray suit pointed to the monitor in the corner. 

“What’s he thinking?” she said, her tone unchanging. 

Ian focused. _32 inch waist. Maybe if I cut out more sugar-_

“Dieting,” Ian said confidently. 

The gray suited woman pointed at the omega girl. 

“What’s she thinking?” she repeated. 

Ian wanted to tear his hair out. There was nothing. He’d told her, over and over, and she kept asking the same question. 

“Nothing,” he gritted out. 

“And yet, there she is,” the woman said, sounding bored. 

Ian breathed to calm himself down. She was there, right? He should be able to at least sense her. 

He closed his eyes. He felt something smack him on the head. 

It was a crumpled ball of paper. 

“Eyes open,” the woman chastised. 

Right. He reached out, sensing for any emotion, any flicker of consciousness. 

The girl would have to be dead for there to be nothing there. But she was breathing. She kept staring, blinking periodically. 

“It’s an illusion,” Ian breathed. The girl flickered out of sight. 

“What-“ Ian started, looking around. Only the woman in the gray suit and the monitor were there. He branched out. 

Omegas in the cafeteria. In their rooms. In treatment- he went quickly away from them. 

A girl in front of a monitor. Short, black hair. She turned. 

_Hello,_ she said, and _pushed._

Ian came back to the room. “It’s an illusion, she’s projecting it.” He felt for her. “She’s above us.” He smiled. 

“What is she thinking?” the woman in the gray suit asked. 

He tried to push against her mind. She flung him back. She was very powerful. 

“I don’t have enough training,” Ian protested. He sat, waiting. 

“What is she thinking?”

Ian growled. The girl projected images into the room. Should he move closer to her, try to distract her?

He stood. The monitor moved in front of the door. He sat back down. His stomach grumbled rebelliously. 

All he had in this room was the girl’s projection. How had she been doing that, anyway? And why had the projection disappeared when he realized what it was? 

“It’s not a projection,” he whispered. 

_You’re in my head_ , he thought, looking around. She was hijacking his senses, his thoughts. Normally, he’d have felt her. But she was hiding, telling his own mind she wasn’t there. But now he knew where she was. 

_Boo,_ he smiled, and he went into the ocean, his eyes still on the room. 

_Ice,_ he thought, and jagged glaciers rose from the sea. He twirled them, spraying sharp icicles the size of his body. They pinged off of an invisible shield a foot away from him. But they hit everywhere else. 

He heard her gasp. He honed in on it, icicles turning midair, rushing to surround her. 

They bounced off of a sphere of blank space. 

_Gotcha,_ he thought, and gave the space a shove. She was gone. He snapped up walls of ice in a high dome, keeping her out. 

He left open a small space, and followed her consciousness back. He only needed a few seconds. 

_Chicken fried rice_ , she thought, and then her shields snapped down. Ian winced at the sudden pain. He laughed, rubbing his temples. It was Wednesday’s lunch. 

“Lunch,” he said triumphantly. “She’s thinking of what’s for lunch. Probably hoping I’d finish before it was over.”

The woman in the gray suit tapped her headset. Getting confirmation from the girl. 

Finally, she nodded. “Alright. You can go.” 

The girl sat next to him and Michael at lunch. 

“Thanks,” she said, inhaling her rice. “You’re the only one who’s ever figured it out before lunch period ended.” She downed her milk happily. “I should’ve come up with something easier.” 

*

A week later, Ian was finally sent to the games. He started taking classes, reading more. He hadn’t been able to before; he'd been too exhausted after Desensitization. 

Sometimes, he’d climb in bed with Michael while he read, pillowing his head on his shoulder and reading along till he fell asleep. This morning, Michael had tickled him awake, and it turned into several breathless minutes of laughing and wrestling before the hall monitor’s heels clicked by. 

“Ok, so,” Michael instructed while they were walking, “the ocean is a representation of your mind, right? When you’re above water, you’re in the normal world.” He itched at his scalp absently. “When you’re below the water, you’re going somewhere deeper mentally. You’re looking at things one step removed, at least. Sort of like the outside world is a movie you’re watching.” 

“Yeah,” Ian confirmed, jittery but excited. 

“Different from a sensory coma,” Michael went on, “because that’s when you avoid the ocean, get overwhelmed by sensory input. They can shock you back from a coma, but not from the ocean, once you go into it.” 

“Right,” Ian bounced. “What happens if you just stay deep in the ocean? Like, to block people out?” 

Michael frowned. “I don’t know. I mean, you can’t do it forever, or you’d starve to death. You’d look like a vegetable. And anyone could still attack your body, so it’s not a great defense. You’d be better off sticking near the surface, paying attention to your surroundings. Even if it leaves you more vulnerable to mental attacks.” 

Ian nodded. 

“You’re ready,” Michael said, clapping him on the back. “Just remember, shields first, then other fancy stuff.”

*

Michael was incredible in the games. Other people were stronger, or faster, but Michael was creative. He’d convince people their attacks were failing, that their shields were falling. They’d change their tactics, and he’d laugh and nab them. 

Michael’s sheer joy at stretching his imagination was infectious, and sometimes the other omegas wanted to be paired off with him just to see what he’d do. Even if they left groaning about how stupid they’d been. 

The illusions were simple, Michael said. Anyone could do it. You just had to catch them when they slipped up. 

Ian thought that was probably true. He thought of all the omegas only a few years older than him, who were settled down, having babies. Dependent on their bonds. They had no idea what they were capable of. He wondered why no one told them. There were rumors of where omegas went once they left the facility, wild tales of secret missions, but it seemed odd that no one had tried to tell the other omegas about what chipping did to them. 

He also thought that Michael was a special case. The illusions were natural to him, an extension of his imagination, effortless. He loved what he was doing. 

Ian wasn’t doing too poorly either. He wasn’t strong, but he was clever. He thought of illusions like riddles; they just needed the right algorithm, and they would crumple. He broke down the elements of the illusions to their most basic parts, turned them over in his head till he understood them. 

He didn’t have the instincts Michael had. But where Michael’s instincts failed, Ian’s careful logic corrected for his errors. 

When they were allowed to pair up several months later, they were unstoppable. 

Ian thought of the life he could have been forced into by now, bonded to some man who looked at him and saw a fertile womb. Who had his own career, and left Ian at home to take care of the children. Not even being able to leave the house without his husband, not being able to drive a car. 

Here, he was happy. The rest of the world dropped away, unimportant in days filled with discussions of tactics and Michael’s infectious grins. 

*

When Ian turned fourteen, he was allowed to call his mother. 

His heart pounded while the phone rang. She’d been responding to his emails, but he thought she might be mad at him for not calling. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear her voice. 

That was his old life. He never wanted to go back. 

“Ian, honey?” she said, sounding happy. “How have things been? I know you said you were doing well in physics class last week,” she added. “Things are pretty boring here. Dad says hi.” 

Ian hadn’t emailed her last week. 

“Last week?” he questioned. 

She laughed. “Yes, honey, when you called me last week. It wasn’t that long ago.” 

His stomach dropped. Of course. Anyone with the right software could record his voice, run it through an algorithm to produce the correct speech patterns, even drop his tone as he went through puberty. They’d been talking to his parents for the past two years. 

“Right,” he said. The facility knew he’d go along with it, now. That he’d do anything to stay in the program. “Classes.”

He’d started taking classes as soon as he’d finished Desensitization. He enjoyed them, but they were boring compared to the games. 

He was doing well in physics, actually. “Yeah, I did this great proof yesterday-.”

“I’m sure, honey,” his mom cut him off. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

“I am,” he said honestly. She chattered on about the family, about who had married who, about the neighbor’s kid. She updated him on her business, which was doing well. 

He zoned, on autopilot. His mother had been talking to a robot for two years, and hadn’t realized it wasn’t her son. He felt hollow. 

“We miss you,” she ended cheerily. 

“Miss you too,” Ian replied, trying not to choke. He hadn’t even been sure he wanted to talk to her; why did he suddenly need her to sound sad, to beg him to come visit? 

“Talk to you later.” The line went dead, and he hung up, handing the phone back to the monitor. 

He didn’t want to do that again, if he could help it. He wanted to forget. 

*

That night, he snuck into Michael’s bed after Michael turned off the light. They were getting bigger now, though Ian was still small and fine-boned compared to Michael. It was hard for them to stay on their own sides, but neither of them cared. They were comfortable with one another. He and Michael shared everything; the games, meals, living together. The best strategies for getting around shields, what they were interested in. They shared their oceans. When they communicated during the games, they used expressions, nudges of emotion only they understood. 

Before Ian came, Michael had his imagination, his stories, but no one else. Ian had been isolated, trapped in a life that limited him. 

As long as they were together, Ian could do anything. He would be ok. 

Michael rustled the covers in the dull light from the window. He turned over, facing Ian. 

“Sorry about your mom,” he said sincerely. He looked anxious, darting away from Ian’s eyes every few seconds. 

“Thanks,” Ian said, giving him a miserable halfhearted smile. 

Michael stared at him. He reached his hand forward, and Ian tilted his head. “Can I-“ Michael started. 

Then Michael leaned forward and kissed him, a quick peck on the lips, so fast Ian almost thought he imagined it. Ian froze, shocked. He touched his lips. 

“Happy birthday, Ian,” Michael said softly. Then he turned back, facing the wall.


	6. Chapter 6

Ian never called home again. 

Another year passed. Michael rose to the top of the chart in the hallway, the envy of all the other omegas, the pride of the woman in the grey suit. She watched his every move with a pleased smile. 

Ian wasn’t far behind. He and Michael fought together like one person, and Ian was more than his match now. 

Today they were fighting two omegas who visualized lightning and forest fires. The team was powerful, intense. Ian and Michael were trying to make their way through the team's defenses, running through hills filled with fire and lightning ahead of them, their oceans rising behind them. 

When the fire turned and singed Ian, pain lanced through him. He gritted his teeth, and ran through it with a shout. He had to get to the top of the hill. 

The oceans surrounded the hill, rising, quenching the fires. This wasn’t subtlety. The other team’s tactics hadn’t left room for it. This was brutal strength. 

He looked up at the sky as the last of the forest fires dwindled on the submerged hills. The other teammate would try to strike now, lightning. If he got in the water, it would follow his rules, and electrocute him. 

But not if it struck the remains of the forest fire instead. He waited till the last minute, then dove. 

The omega with the forest fire was already on hir last legs. The lightning strike did hir in. Ze shrieked, hir shields down, absorbing the brunt of the mental impact. 

Ian could feel hir slipping, losing consciousness. He ran toward the omega, catching hir just in time as ze fell. 

“Are you ok?” he asked anxiously. Michael jogged up behind him, and propped hir head. 

“Yeah,” ze mumbled. “Good game. I need all of the aspirin in this place, though.” 

The woman in the grey suit looked at them, her gaze lingering over Michael. 

“He’s fine,” the woman said. “Leave him.” 

Ian didn’t move. He looked at Michael. 

“Ze needs help getting back,” Michael said stubbornly. 

“No, wait,” the omega said, getting hir bearings and sitting up. “I’m fine.” 

Michael and Ian moved away cautiously. The woman in the grey suit looked at them, lips pursed. 

“I have an announcement,” she called out to the room. 

Each one of them froze in place, games forgotten. 

“Michael Li has graduated from the games,” she said, smiling. “He’s ready to train for his first mission.” 

Everyone broke out into loud applause, hollering and cheering him on. The omegas loved him; he’d practically been a celebrity for the past few months. 

Michael smiled back at them, then turned to grin at Ian. 

Ian smiled mechanically, his heart dropping. Graduates moved to a different part of the facility. Michael would be gone after tonight, until Ian graduated and joined him. He joined the applause. 

He followed Michael back to their room, speculated with him what missions would be like. What it’d be like for them to finally leave this place, when they finished training. As if they weren’t both terrified of the idea, of how they’d be treated as omegas in the outside world. 

When Michael turned out the light, Ian followed him to bed. He got under the covers and molded his body to Michael’s kissing him sweetly, slowly. 

Every night, one of them got up and moved into the other’s bed, needing to be near each other. They were inseparable, their minds always open to one another. During the day, they couldn’t touch. What they were doing was illegal. It went against the morality this institution supported, the way of life they were training to protect. 

They moved like magnets, finishing each other’s thoughts. Never alone. Most nights, they slept together just to sleep, to be able to reassure themselves that they weren’t going anywhere. 

Some nights, the hours they spent unable to touch each other became too much. Clinging turned to slow kissing, rubbing up against one another until they had as much skin contact as they could manage. Then they’d turn away from each other awkwardly. 

Until recently, one of them would leave to go jerk off in the shower while the other had the bed. Now Ian would listen to Michael fisting himself, his back turned, biting back moans. Ian would feel himself getting hard and wet, and get off thinking about doing more. 

He hadn’t been brave enough to take that step. But something desperate and anxious gave him courage tonight. He wrapped a hand around Michael’s neck, deepening the kiss. Michael moaned softly. 

Ian rubbed up against him, deliberate. Michael’s eyes were wide. Ian could feel their hearts pounding, their excitement, their fear. The need to be as close as physically possible. He kept kissing, little gasps for air escaping. 

Michael pulled him flush, giving himself more friction. Then his hand trailed down Ian’s spine, and rubbed over Ian’s boxers where they were damp from slick. 

Ian moaned loudly before he could stop himself, coming embarrassingly quickly. Michael reached into his own boxers and jerked himself off, panting against Ian’s mouth. Then they settled, cuddling into one another, a little gross with jizz and slick. 

Michael ran his fingers through Ian’s hair and down over the sensitive sides of his neck, projecting relaxation, reassurance. But Ian knew he was scared too. 

Suddenly, the door banged open. They froze. There wasn’t anything to say. 

They’d forgotten about being careful, about making any noise. It hadn’t seemed to matter, in the moment. 

Monitors rushed at them, pulling them apart. 

“Michael!” Ian shouted, terrified. He was leaving tomorrow, for who knew how long. How could they not understand? 

_It’s ok,_ Michael projected, trying to be brave as they hustled him away. Ian could feel himself tearing up, but it was ok. They couldn’t sever the link. 

It was undeniable, they way they felt. How their minds worked in tandem. 

They were bonded. It’d probably happened a long time ago. 

Omegas were told they had to be fucked on their wedding night before a bond became official. But omegas were told a lot of things. 

Ian was brought down to a room he hadn’t seen for years, with an unassuming tub sitting quietly in the center. The sensory deprivation chamber. He balked. 

_It’s ok,_ Michael reassured. _We got through it before._

After their test with Ian, the facility had learned that mentioning a stint in the sensory deprivation chamber was an effective threat for any omega. 

He was hustled into the water, the lid clanging shut. He breathed short, panicked breaths. 

Michael counted, trying to calm him. But something was happening with Michael, and it was taking the majority of his attention. Ian looked through his eyes. 

He was in a different part of the facility, one he didn’t recognize. The woman in the grey suit was there. Someone approached from the side, an omega. They wrapped a hand around the side of Michael’s neck. The monitors held him in place. 

_Ian?_ Michael called out, scared. 

Then Ian felt something sharp slice through his head, like a scalpel. He heard Michael scream, and Ian shouted in pain, reeling. 

Then there was only silence. The soft sounds of the movement of the water in the chamber. Darkness. 

_MICHAEL,_ he screamed as loudly as he could. He went into the ocean, searching. 

The ocean was dark, barren. He felt hollowed out. Something was horribly wrong. There were no lights in the ocean. 

_Michael?_ he whispered into the quiet static of the ocean. He couldn’t feel him. He could always feel him, no matter what. 

He curled onto his side as best he could, hugging his knees. He stared blankly at the dark chamber. 

The water swished with his movements. He didn’t know how long he was in the chamber. It didn't matter. 

When he came back to lights and noise, he was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sped up the plot cause it seems like there isn't really interest in the story, but I want to finish it
> 
> also not edited because of the aforementioned, please forgive my shoddy prose
> 
> P.S. you may think you know what's going to happen because this is a prequel but you know what they say about assumptions


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D a handful of readers appeared out of the woodwork! *whispers* I love you each and every one of you

Ian moved down the hall, the other omegas parting around him as he passed. He stood a few inches shorter than all of them, minus one omega who was two years younger than him. Three. His birthday had been about a month ago. 

He stopped at the end of the hall, craning his neck. He was still at the top of the chart. This was the longest they’d ever waited before advancing a top ranked omega to graduation. 

It was deliberate, he was sure. They’d advanced Brianna, and she was in position two. 

He’d decided he would have to make himself indispensible. He fought dirty, fast. The other omegas whispered about it, avoided him, but he wasn’t a monster. He didn’t hurt anyone. He just had a mission; everything else was minutiae. 

Every once and a while, he could feel flickers. Confusion, pain. Defiance. He had no evidence that it was Michael, but somehow he knew. Michael was in danger. 

The woman in the grey suit was the gatekeeper, he was pretty sure. She spent the majority of her time elsewhere, only coming to this portion of the facility to view the games. 

She had ignored him entirely for a while, no matter what he did. He kept doggedly on. He played by the rules. He was a model student. 

Slowly, her favor had turned. It would be soon. He entered the room. 

The other omegas would pair off until there was only one left, who would pair with Ian. He couldn’t help but laugh one day when the last person to enter the room, an unusually tall 6' omega man, had looked down at him and gulped. 

The grey suited woman entered, watching while the omegas gathered. He tracked her. 

“Attention,” she called, and the group of ten or so omegas turned quickly towards her. 

“We’re going to do a different exercise today.” 

They stared at her. She never changed the exercise itself, just the arrangements of groups. 

“The goal is simple,” she projected to the room. “I want everyone to try to break Ian’s shields.” 

Ian froze. 

“Um ma’am,” one of the girls, Patricia, rose her hand. “What are the groups?”

“Pay attention,” the woman said crossly. “Everyone, together.” 

They stared in confusion. 

“Well,” the woman said sharply, “none of you have been able to do so for several months, so I thought you might need a bit of help.” 

The omegas turned toward Ian. He took a deep breath, and snapped up his ice dome, cold and solid, insulating him. 

Three of them attacked at once. Then the rest followed. 

Two of them were fire, rushing at a sea. He rose and drowned them. 

One was a collection of vines. Interesting. But he’d beaten the majority of them before, and he knew the tricks for each. It was an algorithm, ranking immediacy, implementing proven solutions one by one. 

He sent out shards of ice, sharp like glass. Vines severed, and a nearby grove of Spanish moss hiding hundreds of parasites was an unintended casualty. 

A dark forest started to advance over an iceberg. He had enough cold within him to freeze their roots until they broke, brittle like dry twigs. 

The metal beams of a bridge fell on the ice, too heavy, cracking it. That was a problem. But his attention was elsewhere. 

Snakes were in the water, advancing under the ice. Immediate threat. He froze the water deeper, the floating walls turning into the tips of icebergs. The left one opening. The dome shuddered above him. 

The snakes took the bait. They swam rapidly, following the current. 

Ian froze the water. The snakes squirmed furiously, trapped. The dome cracked open, and metal bars fell through. Multicolored glass rained through. 

The remnants of stained glass from a church steeple. Huh. Joints of metal clattered to the ground. 

Someone was approaching behind his back, but they were doing it slowly, trying to hide. Not a priority. 

The bridge slammed through the remnants of his wall, the front edge of it landing at his feet. He smiled. 

_Water wears the tall mountain down,_ he thought, and froze the bridge. The steeple had metal in it too, and the ice spread. Icicles the size of street lamps ran down over the sides of the structures. He could feel a confused brush of consciousness, as if to say: _What does that matter? I’m already here._

There was a bell, in the steeple. He pulled forward a roaring wave of water, crashing it against the side of the structure. It careened wildly under the force of the water, slamming into the bridge. The bell shattered through the stone side, meeting the steel bridge with a mighty _clang_. 

The bridge shattered, steel turning into thousands of splinters, sinking the detritus deep into the water. 

At the right temperatures and with a little application of force, any metal could shatter. It was basic, the inscribed in the laws of physics. 

The bridge had crushed some sort of warped monster, its mouth filled with jagged teeth. Lovely. 

The shape approaching from behind was only several feet away. He didn’t turn. He broke the ice below it. 

The shape didn’t go under. It advanced. It was _pulling_ at him, trying to get him into enemy territory. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. He narrowed his attention. 

It was a void, formless, spinning. A black hole. 

“Incredible,” he breathed. Now this was a challenge. He couldn’t drown a black hole. Couldn’t freeze a vacuum of space. What would happen when the edge reached him, pulling him along to shred the particles of his consciousness? 

Probably a blackout, depending on how hard the girl was trying to defeat him. He stared at the void. 

The mental landscapes the omegas created always had their roots in some fear. It could be turned, used to defend them. But this girl was young, brand new. 

He approached the void. 

_It’ll tear you apart, huh?_ he projected idly. _Though I guess that’s all we are in the end, anyway. Particles._ He threw a handful of ice at the void. It spun, slowly at first, then faster, disintegrating. It was swallowed by darkness. 

_Are you afraid of death?_ Ian asked, ice in his tone. _You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you? What happens when you die._

The void grew larger, silent and unstoppable. 

_The delicate balance that keeps your organs functioning breaks down. Your body bloats, goes rigid._ He walked closer. The pull of the void was shifting. _Everything you are, it decays. Your body molds, it's consumed by insects. Your flesh is in the belly of animals, and you are gone. After a few years, a blip in cosmic time, the memory of you has ceased to exist. It’s the natural order._

He touched the void. It had turned. It pulled at the girl’s consciousness, her fear trying to force her under. 

The girl gasped and pulled herself back to the room, shivering, pale. 

Ian looked around. The other students weren’t looking at him. His walls had been replaced, solid ice. 

Suddenly, he felt afraid. And not of the other students. 

The woman in the grey suit clapped, the sound echoing in the space. 

“You’re quite the weapon, with the right motivation. Aren’t you, Mr. Lowell?”

“Ma’am,” Ian nodded. 

“Ian Lowell has graduated,” the woman announced. No one clapped. 

She waved him over. He followed. 

*

There were several doors that clicked shut behind Ian as he followed the woman in the grey suit. 

He felt the walls. Some of them were reinforced beneath the drywall; concrete, most likely. The minds on the other side were muffled, like he was trying to listen to them from a great distance. 

The last door opened into a hall. At the end was a large, open room, covered in mats. Like the game room. 

The woman led him forward. Omegas were facing each other, each in pairs. Ian could feel them pushing at one another’s shields. He scanned the room. 

His heart dropped. _Michael_ , he thought, projecting unintentionally. 

Michael turned, his eyes wide. 

He couldn’t feel him. Why couldn’t he feel him? But he’d recognize him anywhere. 

Ian opened his mouth. Michael turned away. 

It felt like a knife to the stomach. He had to have a reason, Ian thought desperately. 

“This is Mr. Lowell,” the woman in the grey suit said to an omega standing on her own. 

The omega stared at him, assessing. Ian stared back. 

“You know what to do,” the woman said, leaving the room. 

“What-“ Ian started, then felt something burst over his mind, a sharp howl of wind. A tornado, tearing away everything in his path, advancing rapidly. 

He was already tired. He didn’t have time to shore up his shields, much less attack. It tore through his consciousness with a brutal single-mindedness, and he shouted in pain. 

His body fell to the mat, and he lay there, dazed. None of the omegas moved to help him. He felt something warm and wet running from his nose. He wiped it. 

It was blood. 

Eventually, the omegas started to disperse. He sat up, unsteady. One of them offered him a hand. 

Michael had already left the room. 

“Peter,” the omega introduced. 

“Ian,” he returned. “Thank you.” He stood shakily, leaning heavily. 

They came back to a hallway with rooms off to the side, nearly identical to the dorms in the other section. 

“You’re with me, I think,” Peter pointed. “Cesar moved on to missions a week ago.” 

Ian nodded. He had his feet under him now, and he pulled away. 

“Where is Michael?” he asked. 

“You friends with him, before?” Peter prompted, his eyes hooded. 

“Yeah, something like that,” Ian said casually. “I want to catch up.” 

“I don’t know what he was like before,” Peter leaned back, squaring his shoulders. “But you might not want to be friends with him, now. He’s bad news.” 

“Where does he live?” Ian repeated, ice creeping into his voice. 

Peter raised his hands. “Over there,” he pointed. “Your funeral.” 

Ian strode over, head still pounding. He turned the handle. 

Michael was sitting on the bed, still, grim. He was staring at his hands, and it took him a few seconds before he looked up. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said dully. "If they see you with me, they might punish you too." 

“I came here because of you,” Ian replied, shutting the door behind him. He moved carefully over to Michael’s bed, sitting next to him. “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.” He squared his jaw. 

“Is that right?” Michael grunted. But when he looked at Ian, he looked pained. He was hurting; that was the only thing that was clear to Ian. 

“I couldn’t reach you,” Ian said softly. “What happened?” 

“She broke the bond,” Michael answered, fiddling with one of the sheets. 

“Broke the bond?” Ian felt a spike of panic. “Bullshit.”

He grabbed Michael’s hand without warning, and stepped into his ocean, like he had hundreds of times before. It was home. Threads were pulling back into place, his center of gravity righting itself, compensating for two. But something was horribly wrong. 

“Michael,” he whispered, aghast. 

The ocean was dark, stagnant. The surface smelled like rot. He dove.

Michael choked. _The bond was broken,_ he thought, reeling. 

_And I fixed it,_ Ian returned, searching through the depths. 

_She said,_ Michael stuttered, _she said once a bond was broken, it was severed forever. That she’d done it before._

 _Not ours,_ Ian said confidently. Where were the dragons, the bioluminescent jellyfish? All the worlds Michael held inside himself? He threw orbs of light into the murky depths. 

_No,_ Michael said frantically, _don’t do that, she can take it from you._

 _Who’s she,_ Ian questioned, flipping in the water. 

_The woman in the grey suit,_ Michael whispered, low. _She’s an omega. She’s watching._

 _She broke the bond,_ Ian realized. _I thought that was impossible, but if anyone could do it, it’d be an omega._

 _Please come up,_ Michael begged. 

_Fine._ Ian surfaced, pulling all of his attention back to the room. The bond hovered between them, strong, undeniable. 

“I missed you,” Ian said simply, trying to be brave. He’d gotten older, he knew, but around Michael he remembered who he had been. And that person didn't listen to his logic about time and distance. 

“God,” Michael choked, pulling Ian into a tight hug. Ian sighed, but kept himself from crying. He’d had a lot of experience with ice, by now. 

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Michael repeated, but his voice was heavy with emotion this time. “This isn’t a game anymore. We were so naïve.” 

Ian pulled back gently. “Tell me what it is.” 

Michael swallowed. “They want us to learn to hunt omegas,” he said bitterly. “They’re training us to be killers.” 

“What?” Ian stared at him. “That doesn’t-.” But didn’t it? The pressure the girl earlier had used was punishing, just short of permanent damage. Which meant she could do more. Ian had never considered it before. 

“Why would they spend so many years training us, just to kill us off?” Ian reasoned. 

Michael laughed bitterly. “No, not us. Omegas in other countries. It’s the same war as before. You’d think they’d learn their lesson the first time around, but they’re going for it all over again. If you wanted a country’s resources, what would be the easiest way to conquer it?” 

Ian’s mind worked through it rapidly. The answer was simple. “Omegas are a relatively small minority. If you killed enough of them, the country as a whole would struggle to repopulate.” 

“Which country was affected by chemical waste first?” Michael said idly. “Whose population is the most precarious?” 

Ian felt his stomach turn. “The United States.” 

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Does it really surprise you that they’d think of this?” he questioned, his voice flat. “You’ve read your history.” 

“They can’t make us kill anyone,” Ian blurted. “No one can force you to do anything. The most they can make you do is pass out. Or,” he revised quickly, his mouth going dry, “kill you, I suppose.” 

Michael raised a hand, splaying his fingers over the side of Ian’s neck. 

Ian let him in. 

The woman in grey was standing off to the side. Ian looked at Michael. A man was kneeling in front of him, pleading. _Target practice,_ Michael supplied for Ian. _They tell us how to kill them, then they put bodies in front of us. If we don't, they hurt us. They're very creative._

“No,” memory Michael barked at the woman, furious. “I won’t. You can’t make me!” 

Dark shapes, monitors, rushed at him. Michael cut the memory short. 

“They’re convicts,” Michael spat. “People whose families have died off, too poor for fertility treatments. People no one would miss. As if that makes them disposable.” 

Ian felt sick. “We can’t let this happen,” he whispered. 

Michael nodded. “I know. Almost everyone changes their mind though, after they get used to it. They've been brainwashed for so long, and they don't even realize." He hung his head. "You were right, years ago. In the sensory deprivation chamber. I just didn't want to see it. I wanted to feel... important." 

Ian leaned on him. "We all did." 

Michael sighed. "I don’t care what they do to me,” he said, stony. “I won’t murder for them.”


	8. Chapter 8

Just to stop them, Michael had said. Defense, not offense. The minimal amount of force necessary. 

That was damned hard when he was shaking off another nosebleed, snorting like a racehorse, trying to keep steady. He squinted, eyes narrowing. The other boy was taunting him, he was pretty sure. He knew Ian wasn’t going to hurt him, no matter what. Even when the monitors got pissed at Ian, or when the woman in the grey suit watched him, whispering to the guards whatever punishment she deemed appropriate. 

This was bullshit. He could take the guy across from him in a heartbeat, if he used the same brutal tactics. He had a migraine that never seemed to go away, and he wanted it to be over with. He knew what he would have to do, to make it stop. It was simple. 

But Michael had done this for longer than he had. Michael had been through far worse, and he kept fighting. To stay gentle, to refuse to make himself what they wanted. 

Ian wiped his nose on the back of his hand, a bright streak of red joining darker, dried lines on his pale skin. He braced himself. 

*

This time, he was out for a while. When he woke, the lights made him groan in pain. He gritted his teeth, and went into his ocean, feeling for Michael. 

The lights in Michael’s ocean had been relit. The water was a clear, calm blue. Michael was sitting cross-legged, suspended in the water, eyes closed. 

_Michael?_ , Ian called out, hesitant. The water seemed too calm. The rot and decay on the surface had been there for weeks, the lights dimmed. Michael had been hiding it, he’d said. From the woman in the grey suit. She could move into their minds, take whatever she wanted, twist it until there was nothing good left. Michael had said he wouldn’t give her anything else to take. 

Yet here he was, in his ocean, like it’d been in the beginning, when sketches of dragons covered his walls, and jellyfish glowed like lanterns. The background hiss of the water was peaceful, at odds with Ian’s growing anxiety. Michael opened his eyes. 

_Ian_ , he said, smiling. _I was waiting for you. Step into my office._

Ian swam forward, making a show of pulling himself into a mirrored cross-legged position. 

_I can’t hold her off for long_ , Michael said, looking into Ian’s eyes. _She’s been trying to force my hand. And she’s winning. I’m very tired._

Ian felt his heart thudding with something he didn’t understand. Michael held his hand, and it helped enough for him to think more clearly. 

_I don’t understand_ , Ian said, shifting. When he moved, the water didn’t make a sound. 

Michael squeezed his hand. _You brought this back to me_ , he said, gesturing to the ocean around him. A dragon flipped suddenly through the water, racing past them. Michael laughed, his eyes lighting up. _I thought I didn’t have any choices left, but then I remembered what you said, about going deep into the ocean. Do you remember?_

Fear coiled in Ian’s stomach. He gripped Michael’s hand. _You told me it was a bad idea,_ he whispered. _That it’d still leave my body vulnerable to attack. That I’d look like a vegetable. And… that I’d starve to death, eventually._ He could feel his fingernails gripping Michael’s skin, but he didn’t care. _Michael, what are we doing here?_

Michael smiled, and rubbed a gentle circle over Ian’s palm that Ian wanted to flinch away from. _I’m saying goodbye._

 _This is crazy,_ Ian said quickly, feeling logic running frantic circles in his mind, looking for the right words. _There are other choices. Anything else makes more sense than this. We can figure something out-_

Michael shook his head. _As soon as I surface, she’s going to take me over,_ he said, his brow furrowing now. _She’s going to make me kill someone, whether I want to or not. I’m changing, I can feel it. And I don’t like who I’m becoming._ The surface shook, great waves disturbing the deep peace of the waters. Michael frowned, then kicked out, swimming deeper. 

The water was calmer here, down deeper than they’d ever been before. But something was advancing, dimming the jellyfish above them one by one, closing in. A trench opened up far beneath them, and Michael looked down into it. 

_It’s time to go,_ Michael said firmly, his eyes kind. He pulled away, and Ian gripped him tighter. 

_That’s bullshit!_ Ian shouted, and he could feel himself tearing up. _It doesn’t have to be. Not if we don’t give up. I can figure something out. I need more time-_ Michael pulled him into a hug, kissing his hair, and Ian went easily into his embrace. 

_Shh,_ Michael said, holding tight for a few moments. There were only a few points of light in the sea left near them, and the dragon crowded behind Michael, its lower body disappearing into the trench. _This is my choice,_ Michael said. _I’m sorry. I can’t stay any longer, not even for you._ The dragon placed a broad nose under Michael’s hand, and Michael pulled away from Ian. _This is who I want to be, whatever’s left of the parts of me I like. Understand?_

Ian shook his head. _No,_ he choked out, and it was part reply and part pleading. _Please._ There were three lights left around them. One went out. 

Michael kissed him suddenly, and Ian gasped, surprised. He reached for him, but Michael was already retreating. Moving onto the back of the dragon, holding on tight. _Remember who you are,_ Michael said. A light went out. _There are more important things than power._

The dragon dove, pulling Michael into the trench. Ian swam after him, and came up against a barrier. The deeper he tried to swim, the more his own mind pulled him back. _Michael!_ he screamed. The last light went out. 

He snapped out of the ocean, like a rubber band stretched taught, then cut. He opened his eyes in his room, hands fisting in his sheets at the return of the pain. 

*

For a few weeks, he could still feel the weak thread of Michael’s consciousness, drifting in and out. 

Then, one day, it stopped. No matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t feel him anymore. Something hollow in him grew like a living thing, eating him from the inside out. He didn’t eat more than mouthfuls at a time, didn’t move except when ordered to. This, he knew, was what a truly broken bond felt like. His body wanted to follow Michael, follow the pull of the broken bond. He let it try. 

*

A few days later, he was brought to a room he’d never been in before, but recognized. From Michael’s memory. They’d put a man in the center of the room, shackled, his eyes wide with fear. The woman in the grey suit looked on. 

Ian cleared his throat. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” he rasped out, his voice rough with disuse. 

“Who?” she said absently, but her lips curled into a smile. 

“Michael,” Ian said tiredly. “Can I see him?”

“Ah,” the woman replied, “you cannot. Even if I could be persuaded, we cremate the bodies here.” She looked pointedly at the man on the floor. “We have a system.” The man closed his eyes. 

_You win_ , Ian thought tiredly, and he saw the woman smirk. Something that had gone quiet in him rose, and he bristled, feeling ice rise in jagged spikes. 

“Good,” the woman said. “Anger is powerful. You just need to learn how to channel it.” She looked again at the man on the floor. “It’s not difficult. He won’t fight back, not like we do. They think we’re weak, but you know better, don’t you Ian?” 

“Michael’s dead,” Ian repeated, looking up at her. He focused in, feeling her thrill of satisfaction. His answer was muted, hidden behind a wall of ice. 

“Yes,” she answered easily. “Just you, now. And I know you’re a smart boy. Powerful, if you’d let yourself be. I’ve been watching you for quite some time.” 

She thought he’d be broken after Michael’s death, he realized. Demoralized, malleable. She wasn’t wrong. He laughed, a cold, ugly sound. He couldn’t stop. Weeks of emptiness and unshed tears were channeling into laughter, loud and sharp. The woman raised her eyebrows. 

Ian smiled at her. “But have you been looking?” he asked, and her brow furrowed. He let the ice fly, shards like jagged spears, each of them headed for her lax defenses. He’d been holding back for a long time. Brutality was surprisingly easy. She fell in a crumpled heap. 

The monitors stared in shock, and Ian sent the shards out to them. All three collapsed, and Ian stood for a moment, panting. The eyes of the bodies on the floor were open, unseeing. He strode over to the nearest body, crouching down. 

He was dead. They all were. Ian stood, an odd wash of calm coming over him, his senses zoning. He pulled himself to the surface of his ocean, cold and steady. He opened the door. 

Bodies dropped left and right as he moved through the building, back to the entrance he’d come to years ago. The omegas shrank away as they watched the monitors and staff fall, this time only unconscious. Or potentially in comas. Even with gentle pressure, Ian was powerful. He could feel it thrumming through his veins, easy as breathing, feeling the flex of his full potential. 

When he pulled a set of keys from the wall, an omega approached him, someone he didn’t recognize. She took another hesitant step forward. 

“What should we do?” she asked, her voice soft. 

“I don’t know,” Ian shrugged. He tossed her another set of keys. “Leave, if you want. No one’s stopping you.” 

She turned the keys over in her hand. “I don’t know how to drive,” she protested. 

“Neither do I,” Ian said, and left the building. His anger was fading now, and something else was taking its place. 

Driving wasn’t too difficult to figure out. Ian only got a mile out before he had to pull over and vomit on the side of the road, feeling his careful distance slipping. 

_Remember who you are,_ he heard, and gripped the steering wheel tighter as he drove, trying to control a wave of nausea. He’d just killed, and it was easy, after everything, after Michael-

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He didn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if this chapter is killing you then feel free to decode this spoiler at rot13.com 
> 
> qvq ur frr n obql?


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